Immortal Ice Empress: Path to Vengeance
Immortal Ice Empress: Path to Vengeance - Chapter 5: Choice

While Mira's parents were fighting to try to protect her, she was running into the forest to try to find the cave that she found. She was hoping that her parents were going to be able to live through this, even though she knows that it's impossible. Her parents weren't fighters. All she can hope for is that they have a swift and painless death.

'Dammit Dammit Dammit!!! These fucking bandits! When I get strong enough I will hunt down their worthless lives!' This was all Mira was thinking as she ran through the forest to her cave.

After some time she was finally able to find her cave. Luckily there was no magical beast here living in it. Well, most likely they can't even fit. The cave height was about 1.5 meters tall and a little over a meter wide. And it only got smaller the more you went in.

When she got in the cave, she was panting pretty hard as she as fast as she could through the forest to get here. She found a nice spot in the cave and sat down to rest. She was going to calm her mind down as she didn't expect to lose her parents so early.

"Well, at least I got to spend some quality time with them and tell them that I love them. That's more than some of my other lives. I'll go back to check on the village in a couple of days or so just to see if there is anything or anybody left. Right now I should try to cover the entrance to the cave a little and get some rest." Mira murmured to herself as she recovered some of her energy.

After she sat down for a while she went out of the cave to collect some leaves, branches, and rocks to help cover up the cave for a while. After that was done, she went back into the cave to try to sleep. After about an hour of trying to sleep, she knew that it wasn't going to happen so she started to meditate. Even though she can't collect energy, she can still circulate it through her body. Doing this without any strength is essentially useless, but since she does have a spiritual scythe in her soul it can help with recovering energy. Albeit will be very slow and inefficient.

Mira sat there and meditated for the entire night before realizing that it was dawn already. She was pretty hungry, but without a weapon, the best she could do was search around the forest for some herbs and berries. She spent the morning collecting various kinds of berries and fruits along with some Ironhide Grass, which is a grey type of grass where if you grind it into a past will help recover your muscles.

She went back to the cave to have her lunch. Once she finished that and set aside the Ironhide Grass, she went back into the forest to collect some more. She wanted to collect around 3 days worth of berries and fruits so that she can just stay in the cave. She didn't have a weapon that she could use and the forest is dangerous for a 5-year-old girl. It would be much safer this way.

She was able to collect around 3-4 days' worth of food and some for Ironhide Grass then went back to the cave.

All she did for the next 3 days was meditate, eat, and sleep. After these 3 days were up, she had finished all of her berries and fruit then decided to go check on the village. She just needs to see for her own eyes what happened there.

She headed out of the cave and trekked back to her village. It was around 5 kilometers away so she decided to just walk back.

After an hour or so she was able to see Green Grass Village. Well, it's hard to call it a village still as just about everything was burned down or destroyed. The ground was red and corpses were all over the place. It seemed some animals have come through here as well due to the smell of blood, but there weren't any right now.

She didn't care about anything else other than her parents, so she made her way back to her old house. She went inside through the broken back door and saw her parents there. Even though she expected this, she couldn't help but cry. With tears running down her face, she made her way over to her parents and kneeled down. They had smiles on their faces and were holding each other's hands. She stayed there for around 10 minutes until she decided to move.

"Don't worry Mom and Dad, I will get revenge for you two. Only when I'm strong enough though. Well, at least I got to see that you died peacefully and together, without suffering. I'll go ahead and bury you then I'll set off. I'll do my best to live. May we meet again in a different life." She muttered to her parents as she went to find a shovel to bury them.

After burying her parents, Mira decided to scavenge what's left of the village. Hopefully, she can find something useful to help her with finding food and training.

She searched around the village for around 2 hours. She wasn't able to find anybody alive nor did she see signs of escape other than a few at the entrance of the village. Those must have been from the remaining bandits though. She did find a few useful things to help her though. She found a Human-Grade iron spear a hundred meters of rope, some dried rations, a backpack, some extra clothes, and a couple of water jugs.

She put everything that she could in her backpack and started to make her way back to the cave. This time it took her several hours due to the weight that she is carrying, but she was able to make it back to the cave without anything going wrong.

Once she made it into the cave, she dropped everything that was on her and plopped on the ground exhausted. She sat down and recovered for about an hour before she got hungry. She hasn't been able to eat all day due to all of the traveling so she decided to go out and collect some more berries and fruit to eat for dinner. It was almost dusk so she needed to hurry. After she ate and had some water she was finally able to get some sleep.

After a long night of sleep, she woke up refreshed as it's been 3 days since she's slept.

"I need to plan what I'm going to do in the future. I have several options available, but none of them are all that good. The first option is that I can try to go to Lunar Fox City, but that is around 100 kilometers away. It will take a while, but the most likely end to that is death. I would have to hope I get lucky and meet a nice traveling merchant or something similar to bring me to the city. I might be able to find someone, but I have nothing to offer. Even if I don't die to beasts or people, I might just get captured and sold off as a slave. With my looks, I'll probably be sold off to some nasty man while he 'plays' with me."

"The second option is that I go back to the village and wait for the merchant who comes once a month. This one sounds much better as he might help me bring me to Lunar Fox City or whatever city he's going to next. I still don't have anything to offer though, plus I'm a child with no strength. He benefits nothing from taking me even then he might just try to sell me off. Even if he doesn't sell me off and I make it to Lunar Fox City, then what? I have no family or background there, no strength to protect myself, and nobody to protect me. More than likely some dumbass Young Master will find me pretty and capture me. Yeah, fuck that.

"The third option is to stay here in the forest and train. It'll be much harder not only because I'm by myself, but I'm on the outer edge of a rank 2 forest. If I'm unlucky I will run into a magic beast before I get strong enough and die. Well dying this way is much better than being captured, sold off, or used."

"I guess that settles that. I'll be staying in this tiny cave until I'm strong enough to hold my scythe. Let's see, my scythe probably ways around 4000-5000 kilograms. So just to be able to start even thinking about picking it up I need to get to the Bone Forging Realm. I'll probably have to stay in this cave until at least Organ Refinement or Marrow Tempering. I might have to get to Qi condensation before leaving this cave. Well, once I open my meridians, getting there will be a little easier, but I'll have to finish Strength Training and Bone Forging before that. Let's get started!"